The Julie & Julia Movie

First came the blog, the Julie/Julia Project, where Julie Powell documented the trials of cooking every recipe in Julia Child’s Mastering the Art of French Cooking. Then came the book, Julie & Julia, based on the blog. And now, this August, comes the Nora Ephron movie based on the book starring Meryl Streep as Julia and Amy Adams as Julie.

Julie Powell and I have recently become friends, at least on Facebook, where I follow her hilarious daily musings. I decided to ask my new “friend” what it’s been like to see her words go from the computer to the big screen.

Powell says the most surreal part has been the paparazzi shots of Amy Adams in a Julie wig in front of her old office, at the Strand and a block away from her apartment. “The Julie of the movie bears some resemblance to the Julie Who Is Me,” Powell wrote me. “But, she’s definitely a fictional character.” For one, the movie Julie doesn’t curse as much as the real-life Julie!

Julie & Julia follows the basic plot points of Powell’s book, but is a very different creature. The voice is more Ephron than Powell. According to Julie, “The movie is very much Nora’s baby.” But, “Nora’s done an amazing job of weaving together the parallels between my and Julia’s stories, and how this is about two women finding themselves.”

The highlight for Powell: meeting Meryl Streep, who stayed completely in character—voice, wig, and dress—throughout their conversation about high heels.

Powell second book, Cleaving: A Story of Marriage, Meat and Obsession, is due out in December. Always busy, she’s got irons in the fire but says she’s giving up memoirs for now—“while the gettin’ is good.”

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